


Daydream Believer

by htbthomas



Category: They Might Be Giants - The Mesopotamians (Song)
Genre: Gen, Road Trip, Yuletide 2010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you have four ancient kings of Mesopotamia in a band together - Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal and Gilgamesh - the obvious comes to mind: ROAD TRIP!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daydream Believer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rho/gifts).



> If you aren't familiar with the video for the song, please check it out first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAMRTGv82Zo
> 
> Thank you to foxtwin, fictionalknight and jheaton for the beta. ♥

Hammurabi doesn't know how long they've been driving. Hours? Days? Weeks?

The Econoline jumps and bumps over the long road to Los Angeles - there's not much out here. They should have stayed in the last town - who cares if no one has heard of them? At least their tires would stay together.

But none of them can stay in a town for long. They've been driving west, west, west and south, south, south until they came to this desert area. The mountains are too rocky and the sand doesn't feel right; the ground doesn't bake into clay with the right consistency. _If you try to tell me 'they use something called paper' now one more time, Ashurbanipal, I swear..._ Ham doesn't care. Runes inscribed in clay is the way he's always written, and he isn't going to change now.

He hums under his breath as he drives, coming up with a new song for the auditions, "something with a 'hook', something people can understand!" their ersatz manager John something or other (he could never get these strange foreign names right) had tried to explain. At least, that's what Ash said. Ham doesn't trust half of what Ash says. Ash can only communicate in broken English with John anyway, and Gilgamesh and Sargon don't even try.

Gil is the one who figured out how to drive this vehicle, this chariot-like thing called a van, taught Ham so they could trade off. He only now is able to think of the vehicle by its proper name without stumbling.

Sargon is the odd duck of the group. He can't read or write; all of his strategies are as old as dust. He thinks he's in change of everyone and everything. It's someone _else's_ job to be the messenger or the scribe. His father was a gardener, so he keeps them in weed. And even though he never says more than a word or two, people like him. It’s a good thing, because he doesn't really play guitar all that well.

Ham isn’t really sure why they stay together. He guesses it’s because they all feel lost in time and space - and they only have each other.

He tries to keep his attention on the long, straight road. There’s something else nagging at him, something else they’re supposed to do, but the glare of the sun and the sameness of the journey is beating it out of his head.

Ash's cat, Nebo, rubs against his leg, and he idly scratches its head. The goat bleats piteously in the corner. "Your turn later," Ham tells him, then whispers conspiratorially, glancing at Ash, "if you don't end up as dinner first."

Ash hears Ham’s comment and snickers through his shaggy mane. Ham pretends not to notice.

* * *

Ham suggested the band idea about six months ago. After the four of them had gotten their bearings in this strange land - a lot of it due to Ham and Ash's ability to pick up the language in the mental institution - they learned to play the instruments in the music room. The style was different, but not unpleasant. They stole back their gold-encrusted helmets and weapons, escaped the laughable security, and sold all of the valuable stuff off. He missed his finery, sure, but being alive and wearing peasants' clothes was better than being dead with a king's headdress to keep you company in the afterlife. They had enough to buy instruments and get this van.

Ham had long ago stopped trying to figure out how and why they had been sent here to this time and place. Why one moment he had been making pronouncements from his throne, and the next he was lying in a strange white room. No matter, it was unjust, possibly unlawful, that he had been confined in that place against his will. The others had their own reasons for wanting to flee. Ash found this world fascinating and wanted to see more of it. Gil thought their adventure would make for a great tale. He never asked Sargon what he thought.

* * *

Ash stops chuckling and scratches at his grotesquely hairy chest. For all his learning, the man is a menace. It's a good thing he only has his drum sticks left. The other three took his sword the other day because he tried to skewer a barking mongrel with it in the middle of the daytime. As if they didn't have enough problems because of the way they looked and the way they talked!

Being in a band, no matter how unknown, somehow explained a lot of their strange behavior. But people here liked dogs (filthy things, feh) and they would have had an angry mob after them if anyone had seen that.

He squints out of the dusty windshield and a sign flies past. Barstow, 100 miles. "Is that where we're going?" Gil asks.

"Close." Ash is using his fingers to touch a device in his lap. Though Gil is the mechanically-minded one, Ash took to the technology as if born to it.

Ham doesn't even know how far that is, or how long it will take them. He can only judge the way the land rushes past, twice, three times faster than his fastest horse. It might take a few hours or all day. As much as he hates it, he has to trust Ash, who actually spoke to John, that they're going the right way, to the right place.

He looks through the rear-view mirror at Sargon in the back seat. He's just as still as he has been all day, and this time his eyes are closed. If he's lucky, he won't wake up until the next fuel station.

* * *

Two days ago, in a grungy little Texas town, they played their first gig. Ham stood blinking in the spotlight for a few moments, trying to see the faces of the people in the audience. He could hear a titter of laughter at their appearance; some guy in the back catcalled, "Who the hell _are_ these guys?"

Ash cleared his throat from the drum set. He was the only one other than Ham who even understood what the guy said. Sargon and Gil were holding their guitars as if they were weapons.

Ham pulled the microphone toward him. He took a deep breath and recalled he way he used to command armies. "We are..."

He paused for effect, and the same heckler shouted, "Who?"

Ham ignored him, and as Ham slashed his hand downward through the air, the band played a loud sting. Ham let it ring, the reverb quieting the crowd before he finished, "...the _Mesopotamians_!"

He wasn't sure what to expect when they started playing - maybe the rapt attention of loyal subjects? Some of them nodded their heads in time to the music; some of them ignored the music entirely.

They just kept playing. Ham couldn't even make out faces distinctly. He just let the hair hang over into his face and closed his eyes, singing about identity and loss over a punchy rock beat in a major key.

* * *

Ham studies the map. "A lot of desert between here and there. Think we can make it?" Ham points at the fuel gauge, which is sitting near empty. “I haven’t seen a gas station in a while.”

The goat bleats again.

Ash taps on the device with his meaty fingers. “There’s one in about fifty miles.”

Will this thing go another fifty miles? Ham has no idea. John told them to be there by the end of the week and if they are strand-

The van begins to cough and spit. Pushing down on the pedal does nothing. Ham guides it carefully to the gravelly side of the road.

“Forget to feed it?” Sargon asks from the back.

“It’s not like a camel,” Gil sneers.

They start gathering their things as Ash taps on his device again to call John. Ham can hear a buzzing voice from where he stands.

"Is Ashurbanipal. We are stuck on the road."

More buzzing. Ash's eyes go wide.

"Put it in the video?"

Video? Oh, shit. Ham _knew_ they'd forgotten something.

* * *

After their set, a few tunes about conquering love and walls built between people, a guy in a leather jacket greeted them at the end of the stage. "Hey, I'm John - you guys have a really... interesting look! So ancient-hip!"

"Thanks," Ham said, but he was pretty sure the words weren't a compliment.

"You guys have a demo? A video?"

"A what?" Gil asked. Sargon just stood there looking confused. Ham searched his limited vocabulary for what he could possibly mean.

"A recording of our music," Ash answered, the know-it-all. "On one of those... music players. I think it is called a CD. Or on a moving-picture tablet."

This John fellow was watching them with a puzzled expression. "I don't know if that's an act - or what..." He smiled widely. "But I love it! You guys do any acting?"

"In a play?" Ham asked.

"On tablet," Gil answered, and his eyes glittered. He was probably already planning out some epic in his mind.

John smacked Sargon on the shoulder, who gave him a dangerous look. "You're hilarious! It's like you stepped out of another time or something! But you play rock and roll!"

A couple of pretty girls - the kind who wore all black and painted dark kohl around their eyes - came up to get autographs, but only from Sargon. He grinned as if he deserved the words he couldn't understand, and when the girls handed him a pen and pulled their tops off one shoulder, he stood there dumbly.

"Write your name there," Ham murmured in the language of Akkad.

Sargon thought for a moment and drew a picture of a ram's head..

John laughed. "You ladies should get them _all_ to sign a bar napkin or something. They're going to be the next Monkees!"

* * *

They lock the van and walk out into the open desert, carrying the video camera and their instruments. The goat follows them, bleating with curiosity. Gil has all these ideas of what he wants to do. He wants lots of shots of the sky and sun, shots of the cracked ground. But it's a cloudless day, and there's no one to run the camera if the whole band is in the shot. So they get Sargon to draw some paper clouds and Ash sets the camera on the three-legged stand John gave them. Ham can tell he has no idea how to use it so he goes over to turn it on.

By the end of an hour, Gil has collapsed on the ground from the heat. Ham tries to help him up but he just slumps back down, giggling. It's not the heat after all, Gil’s been dipping into the _weed._

"I know what this video needs," Ash announces, since they’re less one director. "More _action!_ " Then he giggles, too.

Another hour later and the four of them are so high that they are imagining that they are riding the van like a chariot, even though it's broken down by the roadside. Ash whoops like he's whipping a stallion to top speed, Gil slashes at the air with a pretend sword, shouting Akkadian nonsense at the sky with a raised fist and Ham’s pretending to surf.

Ham has just enough sense left to turn off the camera before passing out.

When he comes back to his senses, he can feel a warm, wet sensation on his face. Is the goat _licking_ him? No, it’s a woman, wiping his face with a wet cloth. “This one’s awake,” she says to someone in the... ambulance? That’s where he is, right?

“Where am I?” he says, and he can hear the sound of ghostly laughter all around, like a television studio audience is somehow watching him.

She smiles kindly before answering, “You’re on the way to the hospital, sweetheart. Got a little sunstroke.”

He tries to lift his head a little and sees the angry red burns on his skin. The studio audience sucks in its breath. “A little?!” They all laugh uproariously.

“Honey, calm down. I’m giving you a little something for the pain...” As the walls of the ambulance begin to blur, he hears their theme music play the scene off. Did they succeed? Is this their show? It must be! Through his fading pain, he cheerfully hums along.


End file.
